Two Newborn Killed by Fathers

Two baby girls have been killed in West Bengal by their fathers because they wanted sons.

A two-and-a-half-month-old girl was reported to have drowned by her father at Sabang in West Midnapore district while a man killed his newborn daughter in Howrah district adjoining Kolkata.

In the first incident, 26-year-old Mantu Sahu of West Midnapore's Churkha village, about 200 km from here, was so unhappy with the birth of a daughter that he drowned the girl in a pond.

After being administered a polio vaccination, the girl was brought home by Mantu, a farmer, and his wife Annapurna on Sunday. Annapurna was engaged in household work with her mother-in-law and the girl was with Mantu when he drowned the baby.

In the second incident at Jagatballavpur in Howrah district, a man named Laltu strangled his daughter, who was not even a month old. Laltu's wife had left the child in his care to prepare a meal when the 21-year-old man committed the crime on Monday night.

Judge Suspended for Sexual Harassment

A district and sessions judge in Bihar has been suspended on charges of sexually harassing a judicial magistrate. Sudhanshu Kumar Lal, district and sessions judge of Jamui, was suspended on Wednesday after a Patna High Court standing committee framed charges against him, court sources said. Lal, former secretary of the Bihar State Legal Services Authority, allegedly harassed the woman officer during his tenure as district judge in Jehanabad between August 2001 and April 2005. She had filed a petition against him in June.

Girl Commits Suicide After Abortion

Within hours of undergoing an abortion, a 20-year-old girl committed suicide in a private maternity hospital in Chandigarh on September 28, 2005.

The unmarried girl, identified as Ruchi from Haryana's Sirsa town, had been admitted to the hospital in Sector 21 on Tuesday. Police officials said that her friend who was living in the city had brought her to the hospital for abortion.

She had undergone an abortion the same day and committed suicide Wednesday by hanging herself by a rope after tying it to the fan in a private room where she was admitted.

The girl was reportedly having an affair with a youth, identified as Harry, who was running his business of mushroom farms. She had been staying with the Harry for the past six months.

Hotel staff Held for Allowing Obscene Dance

Two employees of a city hotel in Chennai were arrested for allegedly permitting 'obscene' dance programmes in its premises and for running a bar without licence on September 27, 2005.

The employees - an Associate Manager, Food & Beverages and Front Office Manager - were arrested in connection with the incident and they were produced before a magistrate and remanded to 15-days judicial custody.

Meanwhile, the hotel, when contacted, said its legal department was "handling the matter". On the photographs appearing in a newspaper, the hotel said it was an "intrusion in the functioning of the hotels and the privacy of our customers".

Incidentally, only last week South Indian Hotel and Restaurant Association had said that after several raids in some city hotels, the discos were closed at midnight. Though they had met a top police officer, to extend the time limit, they were told that it was a state government policy decision.

Dalits Barred from Entering Village in Tamil Nadu

Nearly 300 dalits from Naduvoor village in Tamil Nadu have been barred from entering the village since a mob went on the rampage there following a murder in the first week of June, 2005.

‘‘Since then, students from our community have stopped attending school and we are unaware of the conditions of either our houses or our fields there, ’’ Arumugam, a villager was reported to have said. Arumugam is one among the 300 displaced persons who are unable to enter their village.

The village was in the news in the first week of June, when a group of Dalit youths waylaid and hacked Kannan, a member of another community, to death.

Even though it was proved later that the murder took place due to mistaken identity, much was wrought by the people from Kannan’s community. They set fire to the haystacks and nearly 15 houses of the Dalits, who fled the village, took shelter in the houses of their relatives in nearby areas. The police brought the situation under control but not before resorting to opening fire in the air.

Madasami, a village elder, has said only 10 to 15 aged Dalits were in the village and all the others had fled. They could return only through another hamlet on the western side called Melur, where their rival communities were dominant. So, the police were hesitant to allow them return fearing communal trouble.

Five Dalit women gangraped in Bihar

Five women, including a 15-year old girl, all belonging to dalit families, were gangraped by armed criminals at Molnachak village Bihar on September21, 2005. Besides, property worth over Rs 3 lakh was also looted.

According to a reports , more than 100 armed criminals swooped down on the hamlet around 10 pm. They barged in half a dozen houses of dalit families and looted ornaments, cash and other valuables. After ransacking the houses, they sexually assaulted five women inmates, including a 15-year old girl.

Man Plots to Kill Wife for Sake of Maid

Bitten by the love-bug, a man has conspired with his maidservant to kill his wife on September 23 in Chandigarh.

Police officials reports that Ashok Kumar and his maidservant Meenu were absconding after they poured a bottle of insecticide into the mouth of Sushma Rani, Kumar's wife, forcing her to drink it. They took the step after the victim came to know about their affair.

Rani was rushed to a government hospital by her neighbours, who reached her on hearing the screams. The couple has two small children.

Girl Hanged Herself for One Rupee

A 12-year-old girl has hanged herself after being told by her impoverished mother she could not afford one rupee to buy food at school. Sonia Khatun, the innocent girl lived in a village, 200 km north of Kolkata.

"She wanted just one rupee ... but her mother could not give her the money due to poverty," Nakul Chandran Mahato, a government official from Murshidabad district in West Bengal was reported to have said. The girl and her mother were homeless and living under a tarpaulin sheet given by the communist government of West Bengal which also supplied them meagre food rations.

India has witnessed strong economic growth in the past five years aided by its booming software and business process outsourcing industries. But millions of Indians have been untouched by the nation's 14-year-old economic reforms and live in abject poverty.

Girl's Nose Cut Off When Asked for Divorce

A Pakistani man has cut off the nose and lips of his 19-year-old sister-in-law after she went to court for a divorce in a tribal area of the central province of Punjab.

According to the police official, Mohammad Hasan Abbas first shot at Amna Abbas and her brother, causing them to fall off a bicycle, as they headed home from a court in Dera Ghazi Khan, a town 125 km southwest of Multan. Abbas then attacked the girl, hacking off her nose and slicing off her lips.

A doctor treating the girl said her nose had been cut off from the bridge and her lips partially severed. "She says her brother-in-law had told her he would not leave her fit for any other man, while committing the savage, inhuman act," Dr Farhat Hussain was reported to have said.

Eighty Percent of Schoolgirls Sell Sex for Fees

London-based charity 'Save the Children' findsout that up to 80 percent of schoolgirls in Liberia were selling sex to pay for their education. 'Save the Children' officials revealed the figures earlier this month on the same day the charity published a report on the plight of girls around the world who are denied an education due to poverty, conflict and discrimination.

A spokesperson for the charity said on September 5, the day the report was published, that their findings pointed to a figure of between 60 to 80 percent of schoolgirls selling sex to pay for their school fees here. Two other officials from the charity made similar comments. The findings underlined a social crisis in the country, which is holding elections next month in an attempt to draw a line after 14 years of civil.

Meanwhile, Liberia's transitional government said the comments were damaging and gave the charity a week to retract them. It has also given a seven-day ultimatum to 'Save The Children-UK' to withdraw its damaging report, which has already been widely circulated.

Peeping Tom Blames 'Nagging Wife'in Hong Kong

A 76-year-old Peeping Tom was reported to have said to a Hong Kong court he went out spying on women as a way of escaping his nagging wife at home. Mok Kong's lawyer said his client "found it hard to stay at home" because he was constantly henpecked and nagged by his 71-year-old wife, the South China Morning Post reported.

He went out and spent some of his time spying on women and filming them in changing rooms and public toilets with his video camera, the court was told. Mok was caught when a man coming into a changing room on a public beach saw him holding his video camera up near the ceiling of the women's shower next door.

Police found 20 video tapes of women in changing rooms and public toilets at Mok's flat following his arrest in July, the newspaper reported.

Curbs Against Rapists in Delhi

A 31-year-old man was arrested for raping his sister-in-law. The resident of upscale Greater Kailash-I allegedly took his 21-year-old sister-in-law to Delhi Cantonment in southwest Delhi and allegedly raped her. In another incident, at least one of the two alleged rapists appeared to be known to the woman. The 25-year-old woman was raped after being drugged by two men in Ashok Nagar in east Delhi, police said. One of the accused was a colleague of the victim's husband, both the men were absconding and no progress has been made so far.

Girl Requests President to Save From Honour Killing

A 15-year old Pakistani girl living in fear of becoming an honour killing victim issued a plea on Tuesday for President Pervez Musharraf to protect her from her husband’s relatives.

Lakhmira Shar’s husband tried to cut off her nose after attempting to take her before a tribal council to be declared an adulteress in a district of Southern Sindh province, where the practice of honour killing persists. “Although my husband is in jail his relatives have vowed to kill me,” Lakhmira said.

“I want President Musharraf and human rights organisations to take up my case,” she was reported to have told Reuters from her hiding place on the marshes outside Daharki town, about 550 km north of Karachi.

Lakhmira was accused of having an affair with a man she says she has never seen. “Even though my husband is in jail, he and his relatives are insisting I should go before a tribal council headed by the sardar. If I do that, either I will be killed or they will sell me off,” she said.

Hundreds of people, mostly women, die each year in “honour killings” in Pakistan – killed on suspicion of having affairs outside of marriage or marrying without their family’s consent.

Another Victim From High Caste

A Dalit labourer was killed and a married woman was gangraped by three gun-wielding upper caste youths at Ramapur Dalit Tola in Arwal district, Bihar on Saturday. According to reports, criminals barged into the house of Navi Jaan Sapera, a snake-charmer, on Saturday night. They bodily lifted his 20-year-old married daughter and raped her by turns. Thereafter they attacked the house of Majnu Sapera and mercilessly beat up his wife. The miscreants fired on the villagers also. One of the shots hit 55-year-old Sagun Manjhi, a labourer. Sagun later succumbed to bullet injuries.

Hanged for Raping Seven-Year-Old Minor

A man sentenced to death for raping and killing a seven-year-old minor was executed in eastern Pakistan after the president turned down his plea for clemency. Ahmed was arrested in 1998 on charges of abducting, raping and killing the girl in Multan. A year later, a court sentenced Ahmed to death, and two higher courts, including the Supreme Court, later rejected his appeals.

Doctor From Mumbai Charged With Rape

Pradeep Parmar from Mumbai, doctor by profession who was arrested for making obscene CDs of unsuspecting women who visited his Beauty Care clinic and later blackmailing them, has now been charged with rape. Earlier, he was booked for sale of obscene books and criminal intimidation under the IPC and the Drugs and Magic Medicines Act, 1951, and the Illegal and Immoral Trafficking of Women Act.

Sex Workers Demand Rights in India

Sex workers from across India have pledged to intensify their campaign for legalisation of their profession. They said the move, announced at a national convention in Calcutta, has become necessary following the closure of dance bars in Maharashtra.

Campaigners say that legal recognition is crucial for the future of the children of sex workers. The National Network of Sex Workers also said that it will organise a protest march to the Indian parliament.

Swapna Gayen, Secretary of Calcutta's Durbar Mahila Samanoy Samity (DMSC), was reported to have said that legal rights for sex workers have become more important than ever before. Swapna added,"Look at how the government closed down the dancing bars and threw tens of thousands of woman out of work. If these were legalised, this would not have happened. So we demand legalisation of the sex trade in our city and in the whole of the country. It is a question of survival with dignity."

Now, sex workers from all over Asia visit Calcutta to learn from the DMSC about how to organise themselves to demand legal rights and protection, how to practise safe sex by making condom use mandatory and how to keep away all those who try to take away their hard earned incomes. Sex workers from Bangladesh, attending this convention as observers, also support the demand.

Market for Bride Trading in Western India

This is India where marriage like relation are treated as sacred ritual, made in Heaven relations. When girl child murder are on the rise, buying bride is one new culture people following in these Western Indian states.

A few days ago a Tata Sumo, loaded with tribal belles, drove into Chanasma taluka of Patan district. Several unmarried boys from the Patel community queued up and solemnised marriages with them for Rs 50,000 each! The agent, who conducted the impromptu marriage mela, laughed all the way to the bank. He gave Rs 10,000 each to the girls' parents and took the rest. The next day, the bride disappeared with the gold and silver ornaments, leaving the groom high and dry.

After failing to find a Patel bride, Nilesh Patel (36) of Denap village in Mehsana was forced to buy a tribal bride for Rs 40,000. Ironically, the girl dumped him to marry a Bharwad boy from Rajkot against a "fee". "Patel is in a soup and feels miserable. Understandably, he does not want to spend another fortune finding a bride for his brother only to be duped," says Dhrupad Joshi of Young Citizen of India Charitable Trust.

Such marriage agents are mushrooming in parts of "progressive" Gujarat like Mehsana, Visnagar, Prantij, Khedbrahma, Mansa, Bayad of Sabarkantha district and Saurashtra owing to a forged 'bride-drought'. Consequently, Chanasma has 8,000 unmarried boys and Mehsana has the lowest sex-ratio in the state - 772 girls against 1,000 boys.

An estimate shows at least 150 agents and subagents currently thriving on bride trading in Gujarat, using tribal girls from Khedbrahma, Chhota Udepur, Dahod and south Gujarat for eligible boys in the Patel, Chaudhary, Prajapati and other communities. "The going rate is Rs 60,000 for a tribal bride, Rs 80,000 for a non-tribal girl and over Rs 1 lakh for a labour class Patel girl in Kutch," says Laloo Desai of Manav Kalyan Trust.

Desai says that agents cheat gullible clients by show-casing married tribal girls. "Some tribal girls get Rs 1,000-2,000 for just posing as a prospective bride," he says. "In Umeedpura village of Idar, a boy reportedly committed suicide after two tribal girls bought for him and his brother dumped them," says Ila Vakharia of Chetna, a women's organisation.

Man Kills Self After Daughter's Birth

A 45-year-old farmer has committed suicide in the Panchmahal district of Gujarat after he was blessed with a girl child for the seventh time.

UNI reports from Vadodara that frustrated Bharat Somabhai, who was working as farm labourer, was found hanging from the ceiling of his house soon after his wife Chaturi delivered the baby girl on Monday last.

Such is the fear from unborn girl child, some kills inside womb, some discarded. The poor farmer must have thought of coming miseries in their lives - dowry case. Who knows the child do wonders! Bringing with her luck and fortune!

DU Students in Sex Racket

A former Delhi University student was among four women held on Saturday for running a prostitution racket. The women, college students and dropouts, were from the high-profile party circuit and were usually flown to Delhi on weekends.

Police were tipped off that Jagjit Singh Walia alias Jojo, was running a sex racket. A team of the Prashant Vihar police struck a deal with Walia's aide, Navin Jain, through a decoy customer at a five-star hotel in Connaught Place.

According to the police official, one deal was fixed for Rs. 55,000 while another was settled for Rs. 80,000. One of the women Walia referred to was a 22-year-old from Panchsheel Vihar, was a graduate in music and dance from a reputed Allahabad college.

The police soon stumbled upon a network that linked Mumbai and the Capital as well. Besides the Allahabad university graduate was a 23-year-old from Govindpuri, a final year dropout from DU who modelled for various magazines and dailies, who had allegedly joined the call girl business for easy money.

A 20-year-old turned out to be a second-year B Com Honours student from a reputed college in Andheri West, Mumbai while another woman from Bandra is a graduate in Business Administration and works as a receptionist at an upmarket spa in Mumbai.

The girls were allegedly flown to Delhi during weekends and were initially recruited from the party circuit, officials said. The four girls and Jain were produced in court on Sunday.

Teenager Gets 11 months for Hacking Paris Hilton

A 17-year-old Massachusetts teenager has been sentenced to 11 months in prison at a juvenile facility for hacking into professional blonde, Paris Hilton's, mobile phone account.

Hilton’s phone number list, which included all the brightest and the best of Hollywood, was posted onto the World Wide Wibbley Web, much to the annoyance of the celeb set.

In addition to this, the teenager also pleaded guilty to nine counts of juvenile delinquency. The charges included hacking into internet and telephone service providers, theft of personal information and posting it on the web, and making bomb threats to high schools in Florida and Massachusetts, all over a 15 month period.

In a series of telephone and online communications between March and June with a washingtonpost.com reporter, the teen acknowledged responsibility for all of the crimes for which he was sentenced.

Washingtonpost.com is not revealing his name because he communicated with the reporter on the condition that he not be identified either directly or through his online alias.

Girl Marries Temporary Husband

Sneha Patel, a 19-years-old girl from Gujarat has temporarily married her teenaged boyfriend’s elder brother so she can live in the same house as her lover until he is old enough to marry her, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Sneha was in love with Yash Kishan Parmar,19-year-old and wanted to marry him despite her parents’ opposition to the match.

But the legal age for marriage in India - 18 for girls and 21 for boys - put a spoke in their plans. Both lovers eloped briefly but, not wanting to be on the run until Parmar was 21, Patel proposed that she would marry his elder brother and divorce him two years later.

The elder brother even agreed to sign a contract saying he would divorce Patel after two years and treat her as his younger brother’s wife until then.

Is the Indian Society changing bold and modern?

An Alien Exploration in Thailand

Villagers in Thailand claims to have spotted an ‘alien‘ in some rice fields. According to them, the creature, that walked the fields for about an hour oblivious of the villagers, has a small body with a large head and didn’t leave any footprints after it left the fields. The alien is about 70 cm high and has yellow skin and a flat chest. Its mouth is very tiny. It has bald big head with big eyes and big ears. Suddenly, the alien floated to a tree top. After more villagers came to see it, it floated into the sky into the bright light. And laying more credence to the authenticity of the sighting, was the fact that all the ten witnesses drew up similar pictures, when asked to do so by the District chief. "I asked them to draw what they have seen and the pictures came out similarly," District chief Wisit Sitthisombat reoprted in a newspaper.

Lover Marries His Dead Girl Friend in India

When 25-year-old orphan Madhu Verma from Bhopal died on Wednesday in a hospital and her body was brought to the Subhash Nagar cremation ground, her friends decided to fulfil her last wish - to marry boyfriend Bunty.

They called Bunty, the dead girl's lover to the crematorium and performed a brief marriage ceremony after which they cremated her - a task not traditionally performed by women in the traditional Hindu society.

Madhu, who earned a living by working in a beauty parlour and as a clerk in the hostel where she stayed, died of tuberculosis on Wednesday at the Kasturba Hospital where she had been admitted.

She had come to Bhopal five years ago from Ujjain where she was born and had spent the first 20 years of her life at Nari Niketan, a shelter for destitute women.She was staying at a hostel for working women here for the past five years.

"We rushed to the cremation ground as soon as we got the news of her death," said her friend Meena Singh. She is also the warden of the hostel where Madhu was staying.

There's such lovers too in the land of flirt and oomphs!

Guwahati Emerges as Prostitute Hub in India

When other Indian cities are gearing for IT hub, Technology park, software centre or Knowledge centre, Guwahati set to become a Prostitute hub in India. Consequently adding more hardships and tarnishing the entire North East India's image, who are sidelined as sex elements by mainland India. Trafficking of women from the North East has increased considerably in recent years with Guwahati being identified as the main transit point for sending girls to brothels in Siliguri, Kolkata and New Delhi.

A study conducted by an NGO, Global Organisation for Life Development (GOLD), found that 48 percent of sex workers at Khalpara in Siliguri were from Assam and three percent from the other Northeastern states. Traffickers ensnare an estimated 500 women, including minors, every year from Assam alone and the situation might actually worsen in the next few years, Assam's inspector general of police (CID) G Bhuyan said.

"We have to receive complaints to make arrests as it is difficult to just go and arrest somebody without proper information. We send teams to different parts of the country--mainly to New Delhi, Haryana, Mumbai and Siliguri--as and when we get information on trafficked women," he added.

Traffickers generally target girls from poor families living along the rivers who are displaced by regular floods, take them outside the state and force them into prostitution. Bhuyan said human trafficking is more serious where minor girls are involved and NGOs should focus on how to stop them from falling victims.

President of Impulse NGO network, Meghalaya Hasina Kharbhigh was reported to have said that they are organising consultations among the stakeholders to build a framework to tackle the problem. She pointed out that besides sexual exploitation, children and young women are also trafficked for cheap labour and organ transplants. "Prevention of trafficking must be the prime objective of the stakeholders but what was equally important was the rehabilitation of the rescued victims," she added.

Two Singers Sought for Rape in Thailand

Two Thai singers are being sought on charges of sexually assaulting a young woman from Netherlands in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Lt Weerapong Rakhito of Kathu Police Station was reported to havesaid that, at 3:30 AM on Saturday, Patong Hospital reported that two women tourists, one apparently the victim of a sexual assault, had arrived there by tuk-tuk.

Eighteen-year-old Anna (name changed) told police she had been attacked twice earlier that morning at the residence of the accused on Siriraj Road.

Lt Weerapong also said that Anna and her sister Linda (name changed), 25, said that they had come to Phuket on vacation. Linda said that they went to Sera Pub at Patong Hill, where Anna and a male singer identified only by the name of Pla were on friendly terms. Pla was the lead singer of a band that regularly performed in the bar.

Linda explained to the police that, after the pub closed, Pla persuaded Anna to go with him to his room up the hill behind the pub "to get something". An hour later, Anna returned to the bar without her shoes, and with a black eye and blood on her legs.

Linda narrated to police that Pla had forced Anna into his room and allegedly raped her. As Anna escaped from Pla’s room clutching her clothes, another singer from Pla’s band allegedly grabbed hold of Anna. When Anna resisted, the second man allegedly punched her in the stomach and the face, and then raped her.

The two singers have yet to be found, but face charges of rape, punishable by imprisonment of four years to 20 years and a fine of 8, 000 baht to 40, 000 baht.

Lt Weerapong added that Anna had photos of both accused attackers in her digital camera. Hope this might give clue to find the culprits!

Rape in a First Class Coupe of Toofan Express

In a shocking incident on the Howrah-bound Toofan Express, a 19-year-old girl, who boarded the train at Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh on Monday, was repeatedly raped in a First Class coupe. The girl lost consciousness and was found by Railway police personnel when the train halted at Madhupur in Jharkhand this afternoon.

GRP personnel, who had detained a vendor, Mohammed Aslam, on the charge of suspicion, later made the train stop at Chittaranjan, the next important station after Madhupur, and took into custody three other vendors and a train ticket examiner (TTE). Another TTE had disappeared and the police were looking for him.

Doctors at the Madhupur railway hospital, who examined the girl, confirmed rape. It's suspected that she was administered food or drinks laced with intoxicants and raped.

Girls, beware of enjoying the journey alone in such situation!

Sisters' Anger Murders Both Parent and Brothers

Two sisters in Pakistan had been charged with murder of their parents and two brothers, allegedly in a fit of rage after their father beat them.

The two women, identified as 28-year-old Asya and Hansa, 20, have confessed to the killings on Monday to a local police official.

It was reported that the women allegedly laced the family's evening meal with sleeping pills before using an axe to kill their 60-year-old father, 50-year-old mother and two brothers.

The incident took place in Pandowal, a village about 400 kilometres northeast of Multan, a major town in Punjab province.

During questioning, the women said their father regularly beat them and that a beating on Sunday night was the final straw.

The two sisters confessed, "Our parents used to beat us since our childhood. They were not good with us. We mixed sleeping pills in their food and killed them but we regret it now."

A Pakistani newspaper reported on Tuesday that the women were upset that their father wanted to marry them off without their consent. Might be true!

Holy Man Arrested For Allegedly Raping 10 Year Old

A self-styled 'baba' was arrested for allegedly raping a 10-year-old girl at an ashram near Khandagiri hills in Orissa on Tuesday.

The ‘baba’ was identified as Kishore Das alias Alekh Baba. The victim belonged to the nearby Chotraipur village under khandagiri police station limits and had come to the ashram along with her grandmother to provide him food.However, the culprit sent her grandmother outside on some plea before assulting her.

Meanwhile, on being informed about the incident irate villagers allegedly manhandled the ‘baba’ and cut off his beard before police intervened. He was later hospitalised.

Casteist Slur in School, Can't Remove it Then!

Read to these complaints by a teacher who was suspended on caste basis. If even teachers are not spared in place of learning, how then the casteism remove from our society!

"Just because I am a Dalit, the principal has given me strict orders not to touch the matka (pot) and related utensils. When questioned, she said that since I was from a lower caste, I must make separate arrangements for water and tiffin. The principal also asked me to wash her food plate. When I resisted, she said that since I belonged to a lower caste, it was my job to wash plates."

- Plight of a hapless teacher at Sadaphooli Mentally Retarded School, Kandivli after being suspended.

Tripura Rebels Made Porn Films to Collect Revenues

Porn films made by Tripura rebels are sold in various parts of India and nearby countries, and the money generated by sales is used to buy arms to support the guerrilla campaign against Indian forces.

A police official investigating the case said several women cadres of the outlawed All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) and NLFT had fled their jungle hideouts after being subjected to frequent sexual abuse by leaders.

The opening sequence of the film 'Hamjagoi Tongthoklaima' in the local language of Tripura, makes it look like a romantic thriller. But soon the frames shifts from mere holding of hands to explicit sex scenes with young tribal women clad in jeans and skirts featuring in the film made in the digital format.

'Hamjagoi Tongthoklaima' or 'Our Experiences' is no ordinary film but a porn movie unearthed by a team of local journalists in Tripura and later corroborated by police as being an example of how tribal separatists are forcibly using women to act in porn films that are sold to raise funds for their rebellion.

It is just one of many porn films reportedly made by the outlawed National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), a group fighting for an independent homeland in the state bordering Bangladesh.

Police said they learned about the films with explicit sex scenes featuring tribal women from surrendered NLFT rebels. "We found out that rebel leaders forced several women cadres and some male recruits into acting in many pornographic films shot in the jungles," a senior police official was reported to have said, quoting some surrendered NLFT rebels.

"Many girls fled from the grip of the rebels and narrated their experiences to us," the source said. "Obviously the money made from such porn films was used for their armed campaign."

Police are on the trail of the porn filmmakers since last month when some women rebel cadres fled their camps and surrendered before authorities, alleging sexual abuse by their male leaders.

Reports also said the films were dubbed in several languages like Thai, Japanese and Burmese to woo viewers in adjoining countries.

University Professor Runs Sex Racket

A woman professor in Andhra Pradesh’s famous temple town of Tirupati has been arrested for running a sex racket from her four-storied home.

Vasantha Kumari, a professor in the department of education in Sri Venkateswara University, has been suspended by an embarrassed administration after police picked up two couples from her house in posh Balaji Colony.

The raid on night followed a tip-off from some of the other girls allegedly roped into the flesh trade by the academic.

Police said five people were arrested and incriminating evidence like cell phones, liquor bottles and condoms seized.

The incident has shocked the town, famous for its Lord Venkateswara temple. Women’s and student organisations have demanded that police arrest other powerful people allegedly involved in the racket.

Police said Vasantha Kumari had been involved in the racket for a long time, but they could not take any action for want of evidence. Others said she had managed to evade police net because of her influence in political circles.

The professor has denied the charges and said she had given part of her premises on rent to young women. She has accused a local Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader for the raid.